Latest news

Comic Con Russia: dates for 2017 announced

28 December, 12:23

The Organizing Committee of the event has announced that the fourth International Festival of Comic Con Russia will take place from the 28th of September to the 1st of October, 2017 at Crocus Expo (Крокус Экспо) exhibition centre.

The festival is a real treat for all fans of popular culture. At it, visitors will see premieres from the world of film (and TV series) as well as presentations of new computer and board games, fun literature and, of course, popular comics, anime and manga.

The following guest stars attended the 2016 event: Nathan Fillion (Castle), Michael Cudlitz (The Walking Dead) and Sebastian Roché (Supernatural). They performed before visitors on two stages and held autograph and photo sessions with fans. On previous occasions, stars such as Anthony Daniels (Star Wars), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones), Summer Glau (Firefly) and Misha Collins (Supernatural) were also guests.

Both foreign and domestic films were showcased. In particular, the following films were presented in person (in brackets): Viking (Konstantin Ernst); Gravity (the leading actress Irina Starshenbaum and director Fyodor Bondarchuk); Collector (director Alexei Krasovsky); Defenders (its leading actors and director Sarik Andreasyan); and Salyut-7.The Story of a feat (Maria Mironova, one of its leading actors, producer Julia Mishkinene and director Klim Shipenko). In addition, many other projects were presented both on stage and screen.

The Trade Zone of Comic Con Russia 2016 had more than a hundred shops and stores that offered the visitor the whole range of products from the world of popular culture, from comic books to board games and figurines of iconic characters.

At Comic Con Russia 2017 visitors can expect more first showings, stars, competitions, stunning cosplay and a great atmosphere! We look forward to seeing you in 2017 at Crocus Expo.

Comic Con Russia will again be held at the same time as IgroMir 2017. Since its inception in 2006, IgroMir has become the Russian gaming world’s main event and the most long-awaited annual event for all video games fans.

Misha Collins at Comic Con Russia 2014!

9 September, 14:17

Comic Con Russia 2014 proudly announces that Misha Collins will make a very special guest appearance at first Russian international show for pop culture enthusiasts Comic Con Russia 2014!

Misha Collins stars as Castiel, the angel on The CW’s thriller, “Supernatural.” In addition to “Supernatural,” Misha has had recurring roles on “ER” and “24” and has guest-starred on numerous other shows including “Nip/Tuck,” “CSI,” “CSI:NY,” “NCIS,” “Monk,” and “NYPD Blue” to name a few. On the big screen, Misha is best known for his role as serial killer Paul Bernardo in the film “Karla.” Other film credits include “Par 6” and “Girl, Interrupted.” Misha wrote and directed the comic series: TSA America, Level Orange and has Directed an episode of Supernatural.

Misha was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned a BA in Social Theory from The University of Chicago, where he graduated with honors. Before turning to acting, he worked as a carpenter and woodworker in New England’s Berkshire Mountains. Misha also interned at the White House during the Clinton Administration and worked at National Public Radio headquarters in DC.

Misha is a published poet with works in “The Columbia Poetry Review,” “The California Quarterly” and other literary journals. A film Misha helped produce, “Loot,” won “Best Documentary Feature” at the LA Film Festival in 2008 and aired on HBO.

Photo opportunities and autograph sessions with Misha Collins will be organized on the 4th and 5th of October in the main exhibition hall of Comic Con Russia 2014. Before that, Misha will also greet his fans at the very special appearance on the main stage of Comic Con Russia.

Stay tuned for updates about Misha’s appearance! See you at the show!

Chicago's C2E2 comic and pop culture convention this weekend

22 April, 14:40

This weekend one of the best comic conventions in the country takes place, the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, also known as C2E2.

Since Cleveland is not getting a comic convention this year, Chicago is a close alternative, a cheap ride away on the Megabus. Go to the website for all the details about guests and such, but I'm anxious to see Stan Lee (Fantastic Four and most of Marvel Comics); Adam Hughes (Wonder Woman); Adi Granov (Iron Man); Dan Jurgens (Superman); Gail Simone (Birds of Prey); Neal Adams (Batman); Gene Ha (Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix); Greg Horn (tons of fantastic Marvel covers) and Mark Waid (Flash, Kingdom Come) and dozens more.

There will be a bunch of comic companies represented and a few will look at artists' portfolios. The best part is the panels where industry pros talk about news about comics coming out the rest in the year. And there will be lots of people there in costume, if you go for that sort of thing. And, once again, I will be among four comic fans facing off against comic writer Mark Waid in the Great Silver Age Comics Trivia Contest.
This is sort of like The Great Lakes Avengers (a trivia question right there) challenging Galactus, Waid is one of those guys whose memory for useless facts is simply ridiculous. He's also one of my favorite comic writers in the business, one of the ones that fall into my "I'll buy anything he writes" category. I write that in the vain hope that he will go easy on me.
Which does not seem likely.

I won't be alone. There will be three other comic fans up there alongside me in the hope that four-to-one will be almost fair. Last year we held out pretty well against the mutant Waid.

I have this nightmare of sitting up there and being asked, "What is Superman's father's name?" and not be able to come up with anything besides Marlon Brando (who played Jor-El in the first Superman movie.)

Contest organizer Craig Shutt, a columnist for the late, great and sorely missed "Comics Buyer's Guide" will make sure that the battle royal is clean and fair. Though I'll see if Shutt can be bribed.

The contest is 2:30 p.m. Chicago time Sunday on the Live Stage in the South Building. I'll update this site with the results as soon as I stop shaking.

New York Comic Con producers plan smaller show just for comics

22 April, 14:31

The company behind New York Comic Con is creating a convention in New York for, well... comics. ReedPop, which runs not only NYCC but also the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo and the PAX gaming convention, has announced a purely comics-focused new event known as "Special Edition: NYC." Held on June 14th and 15th in Manhattan, it's meant to be a gathering for comic book fans, artists, writers, and collectors. ReedPop VP Lance Fensterman describes it as an "intimate destination" in contrast to NYCC, which had over 130,000 attendees in 2014.

As an events management company, ReedPop will always have an incentive to test new gatherings. The fact that it's launching Special Edition now, though, speaks to the growth and evolution of existing comic conventions beyond comic books and towards general pop culture. Events like NYCC and the unaffiliated San Diego Comic Con draw thousands of dedicated comic book fans, but they're often there to get some hard-earned kudos for cosplay outfits, see panels held by big-name authors, filmmakers, and TV stars, or catch previews of next year's movies. The show floor has plenty of collectors or artists selling commissioned work, but it can also be a free-for-all of booths showing off video games and TV shows.

The Special Edition event is lower-profile and focused exclusively on comics and graphic novels; among other things, it's meant to be a place where fans can meet authors in a less hectic environment. The guests announced so far have won both dedicated followings and critical praise, but they aren't household names. Artist Alex Maleev won an Eisner award for his work on Daredevil, and Brian Wood wrote and helped illustrate DMZ, which launched to critical acclaim in 2005. The list also includes illustrator Frank Cho and Greg Pak, who currently writes DC's Batman / Superman and Action Comics series.

Comic-Con: Looking Ahead To 2014

22 April, 14:23

Even though we aren’t even done with our 2013 coverage, we’re already starting to look forward to 2014. And when we say “look forward to”, we actually mean “start planning” because in the world of Comic-Con, there’s no such thing as “too early”. So we found some tidbits of information relating to next year’s SDCC that our readers might find interesting.

First off, everyone start marking your calendars and booking your arrangements now. San Diego Comic-Con 2014 will be on Thursday July 24 through Sunday July 27.

Next, the New York Times has a piece on the influence of Comic-Con and mainstream success of Hollywood big budget pictures, and how it doesn’t always work out. The latest example is Legendary’s Pacific Rim, which debuted last year at Comic-Con but has been one of the bigger box office disappointments in recent months. We’ve seen this in the past – Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Cowboys & Aliens, for example, where Hall H acceptance doesn’t necessarily translate to the outside world.

It begs the question, is Comic-Con already too big? If Hollywood feels it needs to fill the space in Hall H with films that their market research says are perfect for the Comic-Con crowd, yet a high number of them underperform, will Hollywood feel the investment is worth it? And when the expansion to the Convention Center finally becomes reality, that just means more programming is needed to fill that space, and more of the same.

The article is more of a damning of the Hollywood machine; Comic-Con is just a by-product of it. As long as Hollywood keeps churning out sequels, reboots and remakes, the more “same-y” the programming schedule might start to feel, and it will be interesting to see how attendees respond to it.

On the flipside, ICv2 interviewed CCI’s David Glanzer on how he felt this year’s convention went and what changes they might do for the future. In the article, Glanzer talked about the “Comic-Con campus” they are promoting in lieu of the completed expansion to the Convention Center, something he talked to us about earlier in the year. And we have to say, we were mightily impressed with the use of the surrounding locations this year, although we noticed that more of them required attendees to have a 2013 badge. This is good in that it pulls the 130,000 badge holders in different directions, and avoids the dreaded logjam of people trying to line up for one panel or squeezing onto the show floor. But we’re not completely sold in that, as the quest to acquire Comic-Con badges becomes more and more difficult for the average person, that means more and more people without badges descending upon San Diego who would normally be able to attend, like the Xbox Lounge, are shut out from participating in these activations as well.

But aside from that, special kudos goes to CCI for the myriad of improvements implemented, such as moving the big gaming booths to the other end of the Convention Center and general queue management.

In the meantime, we want to leave you with something to think about. Earlier this week we tweeted how 2014 will be a crazy year for Hollywood and Hall H. So many big blockbusters in 2014 and 2015 will be expected to show at Comic-Con: Avengers 2, Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, the return of Disney with Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Star Wars Episode VII, Tomorrowland and Into The Woods; The Hobbit: There and Back Again, Batman vs. Superman, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Jurassic Park 4, Terminator, Independence Day 2, The Fantastic Four and more. With that line-up, and countless surprises and yet-unannounced projects, Comic-Con ain’t big enough.